1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for producing crackers.
2. Description of Related Art
Crackers are produced by heating and expanding instantaneously various grains such as rice or corn, to be provided to consumers in various manners. Recently, the crackers have been in the spotlight as diet foods, since the cracker contains a carbohydrate as a main component to provide a feeling of fullness with a small meal.
A mechanism of producing the crackers is that, when grain is put in a hermetically sealed vessel to be heated therein, moisture in the grain expands to increase pressure in the vessel, and the grain has repulsion against the pressure, then, when the sealed vessel is opened to instantly decrease the pressure in the vessel, the grain instantly expands to have a volume of several times. Since the crackers produced as described above are porous and starch contained in the grain is changed to dextrin, the crackers digest well, though eating without individual cooking.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,328,741 discloses an apparatus capable of mechanically producing the crackers, entitled “Apparatus for producing crackers”.
The apparatus of '741 patent includes upper and lower baking molds for forming a molding hole capable of heating and compressing rice or corn in a sealed state, a supply plate reciprocated to put new grain into a chamber when the upper and lower baking molds are opened to extract the expanded cracker located in the lower baking mold, and three air cylinders for individually operating the upper and lower baking molds and the supply plate. In addition, the apparatus should further include a compressor for generating compressed air for operating the cylinders, electronic valves for controlling the compressed air, a relay for sequentially controlling the electronic valves, and a sequence control circuit having a timer and sensors.
Therefore, '741 patent has a problem that the apparatus is frequently malfunctioned or out of order due to electrical defects such as contact error of the relay and so on. Moreover, the apparatus is very expensive to decrease economical efficiency, and have a large volume to make it difficult to find an appropriate place for installation.